170 MANUAL OF PHILIPPINE BIRDS. 



Species. 



a\ Wings ashy gray; back blackish glossed with green nycticorax (p. 170) 



a*. Wings maroon, nearly uniform with the back manillensis (p. 171) 



141. NYCTICORAX NYCTICORAX (Linnaeus). 



COMMON NIGHT HERON. 



Ardea nycticorax 'Li:ss.^i:s, Syst. Nat. ed. 10 (1758), 1, 142. 



Nycticorax nycticorax Sharpe, Cat. Birds Bri^. Mus. (1898), 26, 146; 



Hand-List (1899), 1, 198; Gates, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1902), 2; 123; 



McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 33. 

 Nycticorax griseus Blanford, Fauna Brit. Ind. Bds. (1898), 4, 397, fig. 96. 



Calayan (McGregor); Luzon (Meyen, Steere Exp., McGregor); Mindanao 

 {Everett). Africa, central and southern Europe to Indian Peninsula, Malay 

 Peninsula, China and Japan; Greater Sunda Islands to Celebes. 



"Adult male in breeding plumage. — Black above, glossed with dark 

 green, and with a slight shade of slaty gray on the mantle ; upper scapulars 

 like the back, lower ones light ashy gray; wings entirely light ashy gray 

 or dove-color, with a slight shade of dull oily green on secondaries; lower 

 back, rump, upper tail-coverts, and tail clear gray or dove-color; head 

 crested, black, and with a dark green gloss, and having two long white 

 nuchal plumes; base of forehead white, extending above eye to behind 

 the latter; feathers below the eye, cheeks, throat, and under parts pure 

 white; ear-coverts and sides of neck delicate isabelline gray, extending 

 in a collar round hind neck, and to sides of body ; thighs and under tail- 

 coverts white; under wing-coverts and axillars very pale ashy. Length, 

 about 457; culmen, 76; wing, 267; tail, 102; tarsus, 71. 



''Adult female in breeding plumage. — Similar to the male in color 

 and having the same long white plumes on the nape. Upper mandible 

 slaty black with a whitish streak near the edges, central portion of lower 

 mandible flesh-color, greenish towards base; skin round the eye pale 

 green ; tarsi and feet pale yellow ; iris crimson.' ( T. Ayres. ) 



"Adults in winter plumage. — Similar to the breeding plumage, but 

 much greener on head and back, and not having the drooping white plumes 

 on the nape. 



"Young. — Brown above, varied with longitudinal triangular centers of 

 rufous or buff to the feathers of back and wing-coverts; quills and tail- 

 feathers tipped with white; head blackish, crest-feathers centered with 

 rufous; sides of face and under surface of body fulvescent, streaked with 

 dusky black, with which the feathers are margined; thighs, under wing- 

 coverts, and axillars streaked like the sides of body ; throat whitish. 



"The full-grown young bird is similarly marked to the nestling de- 

 scribed, but all the streaks and spots are much paler, the throat and under 

 surface of the body being white, with a few dusky streaks. Judging from 



